No Good Deed
by Dragon Empress
Summary: She should be humble, grateful he didn’t really leave her worthless body nailed to the dojo wall, the scar of truth carved deep into her pretty skin.' Trapped on Enishi's island, Kaoru learns an important lesson...no good deed ever goes unpunished...


**Enishi is a fascinating character. He might be a bit of an evil bugger (and one who enjoys it at that) but he's still very interesting. So I decided to write about him. And Kaoru too...because I've never quite understood the fics people write about the two of them getting together. **

**Disclaimer: Don't own it. Wouldn't mind owning it though...**

- - -

It's raining out in the middle of nowhere, and he feels the droplets that evade the bamboo canopy, falling down onto his bare arms. It hasn't rained in weeks and weeks.

He hasn't noticed. This young man stopped looking skyward a long time ago, and now instead he just looks inward into himself, into time and memories. His heart is the steady beat of a ticking clock; he is calm and calmer still. Waiting.

He's been waiting for a very long time now, for things that rank high on the universal scale of importance. Revenge and justice and fear, these are the things of the highest value, and normally he has little time for anything else. But sometimes, just sometimes, little day-to-day things manage to slip into his fractured consciousness.

So now, anytime soon…

The door opens. "I made you lunch…_again_."

He smiles, the motion closer to a sneer. She is so predictable. "If I didn't know any better, I'd swear this was an ongoing attempt to poison me."

"Shut up." She snaps, before letting the tray hit the small glass table without grace. "You don't seem capable of doing anything for yourself, and I doubt you'd let one of those goons of yours in the damn kitchen."

He sees how dark her blue eyes are, and wonders briefly if she hates him. A large part of him hopes so; maybe then he could kill her. "Fine. Get out." Being near her makes him so _angry_ sometimes; the way she stands and makes demands of him. Her stupid, steely nerve.

As it is now, she narrows her eyes (a deep, rich blue) and crosses her arms. "Ungrateful bastard."

She is so very blunt all of the time. It's curious. It's also irritating, and he just wishes most days that she would just be seen and not heard like other women are content to be. When she talks he feels distracted, put out. Most people don't indulge him in conversation, outside of work and his _necessary business._ He lost the art of conversation a long time ago.

He thinks of his business now, and sneers again. Soon, so soon, he would taste the sweet, summer-bright blood of revenge.

Oh, and he would drink _deep._

And then, perhaps, he would take this irritating woman back to her broken-down dojo to her broken-down friends, so they could all mourn and know that somewhere, he was out there laughing and laughing and _laughing._

Like he will be. Soon. Because as masterful as Gein's puppet was, soon they will all realise that it's just that, a masterful puppet. Rather like Gein himself…

Sneer. He feels the nerve endings beneath his skin begin to twitch, and wonders if she thinks him a freak. If those pulsating nerves on his face make her uncomfortable. After all, she is still standing there, with a_ look_ on her face that her just wants to slap off. Or slice off. Whichever.

She should be humble, grateful he didn't really leave her worthless body nailed to the dojo wall, the scar of truth carved deep into her pretty skin.

It infuriates him to think she's had an easy life. Roof over her head, a father who loved her. Death was an infrequent visitor to that ramshackle little dojo.

But he had done his homework, oh yes, indeed; he knew how her mother had gone young, how it had left her father broken and searching for a way to fill the void. His daughter had never been able to fill the void.

The twitch in his left eye is back, but still he finds his face lit up in an unusual grin. She is still standing there, unafraid.

He wants her to be afraid.

"Is there a reason you're still here?" He asks, in his usual, bored tone. But there is an undercurrent of…something else now. "I will eat your disgusting meal, don't worry."

"I wouldn't." Is the cool reply. She gestures vaguely. "But I need the tray back."

He wonders why he anger doesn't last very long. It burns and then is out; a roman candle complex. "Very well."

She doesn't expect him to turn the table over, to scatter the tray and all its contents to the floor. She doesn't expect him to throw her against the wall and stare at her with his wide, furious eyes. Eyes that both know and love death, in equal measure.

His smile is a broad toothy grin, as he says, "I have never been with a woman before…"

_And there it is! _The first flicker of fear, deep in cobalt depths, so deep it's almost submerged.

This is exciting, and so he goes on.

"I wonder what you've done to deserve such an easy life." He murmurs, looking at her, and yet_ past_ her at all once. "Why do those friends of yours flock to that ruin of a house?"

"I don't know." And every word is tinged with defiance. "Ask them yourself.

He wonders if she is angry again now. "Even _him_…even _he_ came back to you again and again. Himura Kenshin." There is disgust. "Never stayed put once for ten years, but then you changed it. Did you change _him_?"

"I don't think I did. Kenshin changes himself, constantly, he makes himself better."

"_No!" _There is real fury here now, real in that it pushes the hot blood in his veins up across the tight skin of his face. _"No! No! No! Wrong! He is the same!"_

"You're wrong, Enishi." The fear is gone, miraculously quick "Nothing is the same."

And he drops her then, releases the fistful of her shirt he didn't even realise he had and steps away. This girl makes him so damned _angry._ He needs to understand why. He needs to understand everything. "Why do you love him?"

After all, _she _had loved him too. The angel destroyed. Once upon a time.

But now, in this time, this girl doesn't even answer. The breakfast tray is in her hands and she's already out the door, without sparing him a glance. He already misses the way she feels fear. Such sweet fear.

Moodily, he kicks the emptied bowl across the floor, itching for a sword and somebody to cut with it.

Perhaps, tomorrow when she brings him lunch again (because she _always _does, no matter what; it's like clockwork), he will ask her if she hates him.

And then he really will reach for his sword. He will grasp it in his clod, firm fingers, pausing for a second before he takes her apart. Slowly, piece by piece; calm and calmer still.

He thinks of this now, in the still and the quiet. And then he just laughs and laughs and _laughs_, until long after the rain is gone.

- - -

**So, there we have it. I think I managed to stay true to the characters as Watsuki intended...and I didn't turn it into a romance/miraculous redemption story either, 'cos I just don't think it would happen.**

**Still, reviews are very welcome, nice peoples. I like them muchly. **


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